Rolling In The Deep: What’s Old May Have To Be New Again

We’re heading into the last week of August, friends! If you are in a league where you’re fighting for a money spot but currently seem to be losing that battle, it likely feels like the season’s already over. If you’re on top of the standings with teams nipping at your heels, however, these next five weeks or so will likely feel like an eternity as you try to maintain your position and protect those category points. The free agent pickings may be slim even in shallow leagues at this point, so we all know how basically non-existent they can be in ultra deep leagues these days. This is one of those weeks where there aren’t any big surprises at the top of the player rankings when we sort for 5×5 value over the last two weeks, with names like Ohtani, Tatis, and Crow-Armstrong populating the top ten. So, we’ll need to drop quite a bit further down those rankings to find some guys to talk about as we take our weekly look to see if we can uncover any roster reinforcements of value out there. This week we’ll keep our ownership threshold under 20% in Fantrax leagues, which will lead us to many familiar faces and lots of real-life utility guys who are playing enough to help in the deep league world.

AL

Richie Palacios. Palacios has found himself in Tampa Bay’s starting lineup more often than not lately, and has earned the right to more at-bats based on his play over the last two weeks. He’s hitting .364 with 8 runs scored, 7 RBI, and 2 steals. He won’t help you with homers, but if you need a stat accumulator, you could probably do worse. He also shouldn’t hurt you in average (though obviously he won’t be able to keep that .364 mark going indefinitely), and he’s probably worth a look in more than the 12% of leagues he’s currently being rostered in. The second base/outfield dual eligibility also gives him the classic value bump in deep and/or daily change leagues.

Nick Sogard. Sogard is just 7% rostered these days, but after a solid two week span he’s been more helpful than your average less-than-10% owned player. For one thing, he’s piling up the ABs, with 50 over that stretch, and he’s hitting a clean .300. He’s got a homer, 4 RBI and 7 runs scored, and what deep leaguer doesn’t love a switch hitter who’s played all four infield positions this season? Sogard has basically been the biggest beneficiary of Curtis Mead’s horrifically timed injury, and looks like he’ll continue to see plenty of playing time regardless of who’s hurt and who isn’t.

Josh Smith. Ah, the mistakes we made this past spring… I really thought Smith might be an ultra valuable, deep league fantasy asset this year. Not so much, as he hasn’t been able to stay on the field first and foremost. I had actually forgotten that he’s on the Blue Jays now, but looking at recent numbers tells us that he’s not only on the team, but he’s also playing semi-regularly and playing very well of late. He only has 22 at-bats over the last 14 days, but has managed to be a 5-category fantasy contributor with them, as he’s hitting .318 with 8 runs scored, 2 homers, 3 RBI, and a steal. He’s the rare player who qualifies at all four infield positions in most leagues, plus he’s played five games in the outfield this year if that moves the needle in your format.

Randal Grichuk. I told ya this was a column filled with familiar faces, and Grichuk makes this list as a 6% owned player who’s been much more valuable than that on the player rater over the last two weeks. In 26 at-bats, he’s hitting .385 with a homer, 6 runs scored, and 7 RBI. He checks in sandwiched between Jose Ramirez and Rafael Devers in 5×5 value over that time, so while that may have more to do with how so-so they’ve been rather than how stellar he’s been, at least he’s in relatively impressive company for the moment. He could be worth a stream or two in daily change leagues when the White Sox are facing a lefty — as you may have heard, they’re suddenly really good at hitting this year!

NL

David Hamilton. Hamilton hasn’t pinged even my deep league radar in a while, but here he is emerging with a very solid two weeks of production, for an exceptionally good hitting MLB baseball team no less. Hamilton just squeaks under our ownership threshold this week at 19% rostered, and over those fourteen days he’s hitting .281 for the Brewers with a homer and 6 RBI, plus 6 runs scored. He also has 3 steals, and his speed, of course, is the thing that might draw your interest even in slightly shallower leagues if you are chasing stolen bases in the home stretch. As usual, his real life use as a utility guy has translated to multi-position eligibility in fantasy, as he qualifies at second, third, and short in most leagues.

Drew Gilbert. We haven’t checked in on Gilbert in a while, and I guess most of the rest of the fantasy world hasn’t either, as he’s still rostered in just 17% of leagues. He’s got 33 at-bats over the last 14 games, so he’s playing a decent amount, if not daily, for the Giants. We should also mention that he’s hitting just .212 over that span, so he’s not exactly on fire. He does have two homers, though, so maybe he’ll go on a late summer mini power binge, at least by deep league standards. While it’s nice to see him leading off against right handers, it appears he’s just not going to get chances against lefties. It would be helpful to see him get a legit run of playing regularly so that the Giants can get a better idea of what they have on their hands here, and us deep league managers can perhaps do the same to try to determine if he’ll ever cross that bridge to fantasy relevance.

Dane Myers. It’s been a common theme this season that it’s been more difficult to find even semi-productive NL hitters than AL as we look at recent value, and once again there is a big drop off between everyone else on this list before we get to Myers and (spoiler alert) Fermin. The 7% owned Myers has started six of the last nine Reds games, and has recently been heating up, so we’ll see if he continues to get enough playing time to stay on this little roll and force himself into at least the deep league conversation over the last month of the season. He’s hitting .242 over the last 14 games, which is a pretty big improvement compared to what he was doing the weeks before that, and he also has 2 homers, 4 RBI, and a steal.

Jose Fermin. We close with yet another name who’s bounced in and out of our conversations this season, and yet another guy who is a utility player that could have just enough real life production to translate into deep league fantasy help. Fermin qualifies at second, third, and the outfield in most leagues, and has played at least one game at every position except pitcher and catcher for the Cardinals this season, including all three OF spots and DH. He’s hitting .280 over the last two weeks, and while he doesn’t have a homer, he does have 4 RBI and a notable 3 steals. There’ll never be much to see here from a fantasy lens, but something to see is always better than nothing to see in the deepest leagues.